At present, the rhythm of the modernized life is more and more fast. In order to save time, people require urgently that the life be more quick and convenient, therefore the requirement for remotely controlling household appliances is brought into schedule gradually. For example, short messages are sent using a mobile phone to control switch of the household appliances, including: to remotely control an air conditioner to turn on in advance before going home in hot summer; to remotely control a microwave oven to heat food in the oven before going home in cold winter; to remotely control a water heater to turn on; and to remotely control a household appliance to turn down in the case of going out and forgetting to turn down the household appliance.
With gradual maturity and generalization of the 3rd-generation (3G) mobile communication technology services in China, wireless network card services exhibit the huge development space. It can be predicted that like American and European developed countries, wireless network cards will certainly be popularized and generalized rapidly in China in the next few years.
The existing technology for remotely controlling household appliances is realized through an intelligent home gateway. It connects a computer to various existing household appliances and emerging digital household appliances to provide one home information control centre such that a user can check and monitor various information in his/her home through various communication means anytime anywhere. For example, a home gateway access device based on J2ME is disclosed in Chinese patent application No. 200420024835.2, but the realization of the patent is based on access to the home network by a mobile telephone of J2ME, which requires that the mobile phone support J2ME as well. Chinese patent application No. 200510061000.3 relates to using a short messaging service (SMS) server to support remote control of a gateway by a mobile phone via the SMS, which requires that a dedicated SMS server be added in the network.
In addition, the existing home gateways also have the following shortcomings: the user is unable to obtain a dynamic IP address of a home gateway conveniently anytime anywhere; home networking devices can not be found and configured automatically; and remote control operation is troublesome, and the cost is high.